FAMOUS SHIP’S FATE SEALED.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17738, 7 January 1926, Page 12

FAMOUS SHIP’S FATE SEALED.

PACIFIC VOYAGER TO END DAYS AS BREAKWATER. '(Special to the “Star.”) DUNEDIN, January 6. Still another favourite steamer of former days is about to have an inglorious end to a long career by being sunk on the east coast of the North Island. The vessel is the Union Steam Ship Company’s old passenger and cargo steamer, Monowai, which has presented a sorry sight at the export pier, Port Chalmers, for some years past, her rust-covered hull and deteriorating fittings bearing full testimony to the ravages of time. There is probably no other vessel of what may be termed the Union Company’s pioneer passenger fleet which proved such a favourite with the travelling public twenty years ago as the Monowai. She was familiar in every port irv New Zealand, Sydney, Melbourne, San Francisco and other ports far overseas. There are hundreds of people to-day who recall many pleasant voyages made by the Monowai across the Pacific, across the Tasman Sea and between Dunedin, East Coast ports, and Auckland, but those good old days have drifted into the dim distance, and so the Monowai, too, will soon be a thing of the past. Such is the fate of all old-timers. Old ships, like humans, animals and birds, have a lease of life, and then pass into oblivion. Thp Monowai's fate has been sealed by the Gisborne Harbour Board, which body yesterday decided to purchase the vessel for the purpose of sinking her as a breakwater and jetty at Whareongaonga, ten miles south cf Gisborne, where a quarry is being opened to provide stone for a large harbour scheme. The purchase price ;s £12,000, including the delivery of the ship at Gisborne. Although battered aud torn, as a result of lying idle for so many years, the Monowai still retains her fittings, which were considered a feature of the ship in her palmy days. Of course everything inside her old hull is musty and neglected, and above deck one is somewhat pained to view the rust and blistered paintwork. Some of the deck fittings are missing, having been commandeered by the owners to supplement repair work on other ships. And so a stately ship of the early nineties is about to pass to her doom She will be coupletely gutted before being towed to Gisborne. The Monowai, which was one of the best appointed vessels trading in these waters twenty-five years ago, arrived at Port Chalmers on the evening of May 26, 1890, from Glasgow via Teneriffe and Cape Town,. Her advent .naturally created quite a deal of interest amongst the residents of Dunedin and Port Chalmers. The Monowai was at that time the largest of the company’s fleet. She was launched from the yards of Messrs W. Denny Bros., at Dumbarton, on December 11, 1889, and christened by Mrs Topping, the wife of the London secretary of the company. The ship was built entirely of mild steel on the cellular bottom principle, with five watertight compartments and provision for 348 tons of water ballast in five separate tanks She had a straight stem and elliptic stern, and her gross tonnage was 3400. There were four decks in all, spar deck, main deck, ’tween deck and the shade deck, which ran right aft to the flying bridge forward of the funnel, and were only broken to allow of cargo being worked. One very remarkable feature in connection with the Monowai’s voyage out from Glasgow was that the engines never ceased working for a single moment from the time of leaving the pilot in the Irish Channel until her arrival of Taiaroa Heads. This, it was stated, was unprecedented in the history of marine engineering at the time. The engines made 4,333.148 revolutions, equal to 82,329,812 feet or 13,524 knots[ being an average of 10.58 miles per hour. The Monowai was employed for some time in the San Francisco-New Zealand mail service, and became a very popular boat with travellers crossing the Pacific. She carried one of the early New Zealand contingents to South Africa during the Boer War. and in later years was employed solely in the Dunedin-East Coast-Auckland passenger and cargo service. She was at Auckland when the waterside strike occurred in 1913, and was a unit of a huge fleet which was thrown idle on the Waitemata for several months. The Monowai a week or two after the strike had commenced was moored across the end of the Queen Street wharf and was used to house the free labour engaged to work the ships and a number of foot specials. For this service she was thereafter termed the “ scab ship ” by the striking watersiders throughout New Zealand. The Monowai was one of the first ships to be commandeered by the Government at the outbreak of the Great War. She was despatched very quickly with the Moeraki to Samoa, bear ing the first troops to leave the Dominion. Several months later she returned to Auckland with the first fruits of the bitter harvest, a shipload of invalided men. The Monowai resumed her former running in t.V3 Dunedin-East Coast-Auckland service in 1915, and was withdrawn shortly after the end of the war, when the Union Company decided to cease carrying passengers between Dunedin and Auckland. The Monowai met with two mishaps during her career. She broke her ta.lshaft when bound from New Zealand to Melbourne about 1908. She drifted helplessly for some time in the vicinity of Milford Sound, and was subsequently picked up by the Mokoia and towed back to Port Chalmers for repairs. On the second occasion her rudder shaft broke when bound from Sydney to Wellington. She was aga» i picked up by the Mokoia, and towed back to Sydney. The vessel has occupied an idle berth at Port Chalmers for the past or seven years.